This One Time
by Fyre Dancer
Summary: She just wanted to help survivors and find a safe place to wait out the rest of the apocalypse. Who knew it would be this complicated? Better than it sounds(I hope), I just can't think very well right now. T just to be safe for later chapters. R&R please, thanks y'all!
1. Chapter 1

**Alright, so this is a slightly edited and possibly better version of chapter one. Also, looking for a new story title, one that maybe fits a little better. Enjoy ^^**

**DC: I do not own Left 4 Dead 1 or 2.**

**~~~Hunter/Kat's PoV~~~**

Wandering through the wreckage that had once been Savannah, GA before the advent of the green flu, the skinny little hunter knew she was completely out of place. Through all the places she'd been she'd never met another female hunter, and all the males thus far had been gibbering idiots, more interested in food and procreation than anything else. She knew that, by rights and technicality, she should be at least as much of a mental case and probably more so, but by some freak of nature or maybe the infection itself, she still retained the normal human thought processes and ability of speech. That speaking ability had been tested, quite unintentionally she would add, on the first day she'd been up and around after the infection had taken its harsh toll on her body. Whoever had apparently been taking care of her had left a CD going, and she'd still been singing a haunting song in her clear soprano when she'd wandered out into the silent Greenville street. It was only when she'd been attacked by every common infected within what seemed like a ten-block radius that she decided singing, and talking in general, was an all-around bad idea. She would talk and sing to herself whenever she was safe where none of her animalistic fellows could do anything about what they clearly believed was a source of food to ease their gnawing hunger, but otherwise she was silent. _Silent as the grave_, the thought popped unbidden into her mind and hung there a moment as she crouched sniffing at what had once been a convenience store. _Now where the hell did that come from?_ she wondered, then the next thought came: _Hey, I smell food._ She slinked cautiously into the store, sometimes on all fours sometimes on two, slowly made her way to the food-stand and began to pick through and select items that hadn't yet putrefied to eat. She vaguely remembered that the particular item she was eating was called a corndog, and then she remembered that somewhere there should be containers of sweet, bubbly liquid. She finished her food then made her way to the back of the store where she discovered a whole collection of the stuff. She pulled one out at random and began attempting to open the bottle, but that proved to be a little more difficult than seemed strictly necessary as her claws kept getting in the way. Frustrated, she set the bottle down on the counter and stared at it for a few moments, then she suddenly grinned and picked it back up and carefully cut the top off of it with her claws, being extra careful not to spill the drink. The stuff tasted just as good as she half remembered, and when she finished eating and went back to the apartment she'd been living in for the past couple of weeks she felt almost human again. "Almost," she sighed softly, "But not completely…" She shook away the thoughts and began to hum a tune to herself as she crawled into bed and curled up, deciding that tomorrow she would begin searching for any survivors still in the area and join and help them out if she could. She woke up the next morning to the sounds of shouted curses and rapid gunfire in various different calibers, along with the unmistakable gibbering and howling of the infected as they died. She jumped up out of bed and the first thing she grabbed was a pair of gloves. The last thing she needed was for the survivors to see her claws and shoot her before she'd had a chance to explain. The next few minutes were spent with her frantically gathering the weapons she'd managed to collect and strapping them to herself, then after making sure she could get any one, or two in the case of the pistols she'd strapped to her legs, of them into action on a moment's notice she scrambled out the window and down the fire escape and went racing off after the survivors, shouting wait and slicing any infected that got in her way to bits with her sword. It was only after the survivors had noticed her and the area was cleared of infected that she remembered she didn't even have a name she could give them. It was too late to worry about it now. "Hey," she panted, "Can y'all wait up a bit?"

"Oh god, just what we don't need," a guy in what used to be a white suit, his hair still neatly combed back, grumbled, "Sorry kid, we're full up on hicks, you'll have to wait and catch the next train out of town."

"Give the girl a break Nick, kid can't help where she was left," said a tall, heavy-set man with dark skin and a deep, comforting sort of voice, "Where you headed young'un?"

"I don't know, anywhere without zombies," she said. _Smooth,_ she chided herself. "There was supposed to be a CEDA evac center on top of the motel, but we got there a little too late," a dark-skinned young woman wearing jeans and a bright pink shirt said. The hunter got the impression of a mother from the kindly expression on the woman's face.

"And got left and nearly bombed," the guy in the suit reminded her testily.

" 'S'alright," a voice the hunter as yet hadn't heard said. She turned to see a well-built young man in a bull shifters t-shirt and what looked like a set of mechanic's coveralls with the top tied around his waist by the sleeves and a baseball cap with a tow truck logo on it, "We just gotta find us a set o' wheels that ain't broke is all."

"Where do we start?" the hunter asked, "Long as y'all don't mind me taggin' along..?"

"Nah, we don't mind darlin'," the mechanic said, "Ya got a name girly?"

"Sorry, no," she admitted. She didn't much want to lie to him, for some reason she decided not to examine just yet, but she certainly didn't want him going off half-cocked and shooting her with his shotgun either. It also struck her that she'd worked much harder at fixing him in her mind completely than the others, although she ignored that fact for the moment too. "I can't remember anything from before this all happened," she said, "I guess I fell or ran into something… I can't remember. I'm sorry…"

"It's alright darlin'," the mechanic grinned, "Don't sweat it. We get to the safehouse and I promise, if I can't help ya remember yer real name I'll give ya one to use til ya can remember."

"Ya'd do that?" she asked, "Really?"

"Sure darlin'," he grinned back, "Whad'a y'all say, she can come with us right?"

"Sure, there's always room for one more," the big man said with a smile, "I'm Coach."

"And I'm Rochelle," the other woman said with her own smile, "Glad to have you with us."

"You'll be coming whether I want you to or not, so sure, tag along," the one in the suit snorted, "Just keep up and take care of yourself, because we sure as hell can't do it for you."

"That's Nick," the mechanic said, rolling his eyes, then he smiled down at the hunter again, "I'm Ellis. I'm glad to meet ya darlin'."

"Ellis," the hunter tested the name, then she smiled, "I like it. And thanks, I'm glad to meet you too."

"Sure thing darlin'," he grinned, "Now let's catch up or the others are gonna leave us behind."

"Come on young'uns, safehouse is here close somewhere, if we're quick we might actually get some time to have a real rest for a spell," Coach said.

"Y'all got any food or anything like that packed an' all?" the hunter asked.

"Naw, but you usually find plenty o' that stuff in the safehouses," Ellis said.

"Well, alright, let's go then," the hunter replied.

"Don't worry, we'll get there just fine and have time to spare," Ellis smiled. She just nodded and followed him and the rest of the group.


	2. Chapter 2

**Alright, edited this one too, and ended it a little better(hopefully). Also going to be adding another chapter soon if all goes according to plan. Enjoy 3**

**DC: I do not own L4D 1 or 2.**

**~~~Hunter/Kat's PoV~~~**

They proceeded to work their way up the street, and for quite a long time no one said anything or even made a sound other than the soft footfalls they couldn't help. This was apparently a trial for Ellis. They had seen nothing after the last attack, and now the mechanic it seemed was becoming bored. The group, with the exception of the hunter, began talking quietly among themselves, and it wasn't long before they were joking a little. "So, this one time, me an' my buddy Keith…" Ellis started, but he'd been a little louder than he'd intended.

"Shut up!" Nick hissed in an angry whisper, "The whole town is going to know we're here!"

"Ok," Ellis responded cheerfully, and a lot more quietly. Nick just rolled his eyes and the group continued up the street, until they came to a massive traffic jam. "Who knew stuff like this could happen in Savanna?" Nick grumbled, giving the pileup an offended glare.

"We're in a zombie apocalypse," Coach reasoned, "When people get sick in their cars there's not much chance of all the streets being open. Especially main ones," he added, looking around suspiciously, eyeing all the cars and the odd truck here and there wrecked in the middle of the intersection.

"Ten bucks says I can fix one an' we can just drive outta here," Ellis joked.

"Ellis, now really isn't the time," Rochelle said gently, "Coach, how do you propose we get around this?"

"What if we just climb over?" the hunter asked, then noticing they were all looking at her like she was daft she added, "What?"

"Uh, darlin', cars have a habit of makin' a lot o' noise when they're touched," Ellis explained hurriedly.

"Oh," was all she could think of to say. She had never had to worry about it before because she herself could just jump away from the hordes that came running toward the source of the racket. She felt a little ridiculous because she now remembered her new friends couldn't do that.

"'S'alright girly," Ellis told her gently, "Was a good try anyway."

"Hillbillies," Nick muttered sarcastically, and the hunter got the impression that he thought neither she nor Ellis knew much of anything at all. She felt a bit miffed even though she knew she hadn't been really thinking about it when she'd suggested climbing over the cars. _Maybe it's just that it's Nick,_ she thought to herself. She didn't have time to wonder farther though, as the next sound she heard was very, very loud, a car alarm to be exact, and Nick started cursing a blue streak that would have made a sailor blush. Ellis dashed up to the car, forced open the hood, and pulled a wire and the dreadful noise stopped, but by then the damage was already done. "Hope y'all got yer Sunday duds on, 'cause company's jus' come a' callin'!" Ellis announced, pulling out his axe, and if she hadn't known better the hunter would have sworn he thought this was just some wild night out with a bunch of friends.

"Fuck you!" Nick shouted back furiously, pulling out his pistols and starting in on the zombies, dropping as many as he possibly could before he had to reload. Coach started blasting away with his shotgun while Nick reloaded, and when Coach got low the hunter took over with her own shotgun, then Rochelle started picking off the ones a little farther back with her hunting rifle. At that point most of them had to give up on guns altogether and follow Ellis' lead. Coach switched to his chainsaw and Rochelle to her crowbar, and the hunter pulled out her sword, while Nick continued to blaze away with both pistols. It wasn't hard to kill the infected, but the hunter had to constantly catch herself and remember to fight like a human and not reach for the gibbering things with her hands. Also at the same time she had to remember where everyone was, and she found that to be harder still, even getting separated from them at one point which forced them to rescue her. When they finally managed to get rid of the horde they staggered off to the side of the street to attempt to recuperate a little before going on, Nick for once being strangely quiet while the others discussed in hushed tones what to do. "Nick are you…alright..?" the hunter started, trailing off when he huffed and turned away from her. She shrugged and went and sat down on the sidewalk by Coach's feet. "So what do we do now?" Rochelle asked.

"Whatever we do, we can't take another chance like that," Coach said quietly.

"We could go through a buildin' an' come out on a side street," Ellis suggested.

"Actually that's not a half bad idea," Rochelle said.

"How?" Nick asked irritably, "Every time we go into a building something bad happens."

"If we go through a building we come out on the other side of this mess," Coach explained pointing to the cars, "And we only have to go through the one on the corner, we don't have to do much more than go in the front and out the back."

"I hope you know what you're doing," Nick muttered.

"Oh come on it ain't that bad," Ellis said, "Just goin' through a convenience store, how hard could it be?"

"Isn't," Nick corrected, "And don't say _that_!"

"Alright, so we're all agreed?" Coach asked.

"Yup, let's do this," Ellis said enthusiastically. The hunter took her cue from the others and nodded along with them in their assent, and with that they headed into the building. It was completely dark inside, and the rest of the group all turned on their flashlights while the hunter switched off following them around individually. She would have been able to navigate the place just fine by herself because her eyes adjusted completely to the darkness and she could smell her way as well as see, but she couldn't risk them finding out that she was infected. She also wanted to learn their smells and get to know them a little bit, but following Nick around she didn't get much of either. Nick didn't have much of a scent, just the fading smell of cologne and hair gel, and an also surprisingly faint smell of sweat. He also didn't have any intention of talking to her apparently, and after following him for only a minute or two she gave up trying and started tagging Rochelle around. "Hey Rochelle," the hunter whispered cheerfully, "How ya doin'?"

"I'm doing fine," Rochelle whispered back with a smile, "How'd you get along with Nick?"

The hunter thought for a moment, then she said, "I'm not sure. He's very…hm. Not sure how ya'd describe him. Don't think he likes me 'r Ellis much, told me I's jus' like Ellis like it was a bad thing an' that I should follow him around instead."

"Yeah, that's Nick," Rochelle laughed softly, "He's had a harder time adjusting to this mess than most of the rest of us." The hunter didn't miss the fact though that Rochelle's eyes and voice got real soft when she talked about or looked at Nick. The hunter was glad someone could like the guy, because she found his personality to be rather abrasive. She admired Rochelle though, because the older woman seemed to know almost exactly what to say anytime it looked like an argument was about to erupt. Her smell was also one that the hunter liked. A soft perfume in some floral scent that the hunter didn't know, hairspray, a tinge of sweat which the hunter knew from past experience was normal for humans under stress, and another smell that she'd never encountered before which she decided must be Rochelle personally. "So what did you do before all this?" the hunter asked.

"Well, I was a producer for a TV news program. Mostly coffee duty and hooking up cables, the occasional communications patch," Rochelle explained, "but then we heard that there was an outbreak of the green flu here in Savannah and I was asked to do the story, so I flew down from Atlanta and ended up running around with these guys."

"I came from Greenville," the hunter said, "That's about all I know. Only know that 'cause that's what the sign said when I was leavin'."

"Land alive girl, how'd you make it all the way down here?" Rochelle asked sounding slightly shocked.

"I donno," the hunter said, "I walked. I didn' know it was that far away, all I did was avoid anythin' that was wanderin' around. Even survivors after the first group."

"You got really lucky," Rochelle said softly, "Anyway I'm glad you made it. I was starting to feel a little outnumbered with all these guys." The hunter laughed a little at this and they continued down the hallway and out into the street to regroup with the others, then continued on up the street. They made it to the safehouse without any other real incidents and while the others barricaded the door to keep out unwanted visitors the hunter, embarrassed by her dismal performance on her first day with a group, curled up in the farthest corner of the main room to keep out of the way. Now with the door safely reinforced against intruders, everyone started setting up places to sleep, since none of them felt like going on any farther that day. Nick, having been quiet and much less snappy since the car alarm, simply stated he was going to bed and took over the couch in the next room, and not long after that the hunter heard him snoring. _He's even managing to be quiet at that_, she thought. She sort of felt bad for him, because she had been the one to suggest going over the cars but he had been the one to get unlucky and set off the alarm, and quite apart from being dangerous, she could just imagine how embarrassed he must have been. Probably still was for that matter. Rochelle went to bed next, and then Coach followed soon after, leaving the hunter and Ellis to fend for themselves. The hunter got up and stretched, then she slowly made her way over to sit near Ellis to clean her weapons. "Hey, how's it goin' darlin'?" he asked cheerfully.

"It's goin' alright. Could be better, but it could definitely be worse too. Just weird with more than just me, ya know?" she said quietly.

"Ya'll get used to it," he smiled, "Sides, ya didn' do so bad for a first day, ya shouldda seen us a day er two ago."

"Whaddya mean?" she asked.

"Shit, not a one of us knew where ta look, we got sep'rated ever'time we turned around, I even almost shot Nick once or twice't, Coach too," Ellis laughed, "We got better tho, an you will too."

"Thanks Ellis," she smiled, "That makes me feel a little better, least I didn' catch one o' y'all with my sword or somethin' like that."

He laughed, "Nah, ya didn' do anythin' like that. Jus give yerself a bit, ya'll get it." She smiled at him and continued cleaning her shotgun, finishing after a few minutes and going to polishing her sword. "So, how 'bout that name then?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Still can't r'member my real name, I'm sorry," she said quietly, still working on her weapons.

"'S'alright girly," he said, running a rag over his axe, "Ya got anythin' in mind or ya jus' want me ta throw a couple at ya?"

"Mno, not that I can think of right off," she said, "That'll work tho. Jus' call me somethin', long's it's nothin' bad I don't mind too much."

"Alright," he laughed, "We'll try a few 'til I can come up with one ya like." He tried several different names, but they were all discarded, either after she decided she didn't like them or he decided they didn't fit. "Katarina," he finally tried as he picked up a guitar that had been leaning against the wall and started to tune it.

She thought for a moment then grinned, "Sounds good. Kat for short?"

"Only if yer ok with bein' called Kattie once in a while," he teased.

"I'm ok with that," she said, then asked, "Can ya play that thing?"

"Oh sure," he grinned, "Jus' gotta r'member it has six strings 'stead o' four. I can play 'em both tho."

"Wat's the differ'nce?" she asked without thinking, then explained in embarrassment at his odd expression, "Ain't a musician much."

"'S'alright," he grinned, "One with only four strings, that's a bass. This'n's a reg'lar six-string."

"I'll pretend that made sense to me," Kat said.

"Bass makes a lower sound," Ellis explained, "Six-string makes a higher sound an' more of 'em."

"Show me," she said, wrinkling up her nose, "I still don' get it."

"Well, yer jus' gonna hafta do with a six-string, I don't have a bass right now," Ellis said.

"That's ok," Kat giggled, "Jus' play it." He laughed and, now satisfied that the guitar was making the sounds it should, finally started to play. Kat didn't know any of the songs, but that didn't stop her from picking up the tunes and humming them as he played, and she ended up falling asleep while listening to Ellis play.


End file.
